Dale Matson
Click on Photographs To Enlarge
Hike Route
If you like hiking in mid June conditions in August, Big
McGee Lake is a lovely hike this year. I had done a small portion of this hike
previously and you can’t beat the eastern Sierra Nevada scenery. Have plenty of
insect spray on hand.
Here are some basics of the hike. The McGee Creek Trailhead
is south of Convict Lake and north of Tom’s Place off Highway 395. Overnights
require a wilderness permit which we reserved online and picked up the day prior
at the White Mountain ranger station in Bishop. My Suunto GPS had this hike at
about 16 miles round trip to our campsite at Big McGee Lake with around 3,000’
of climb outbound. Water from Horsetail Falls currently crosses the trail and
needs to be forded. There are two crossings of McGee Creek. The first crossing
(west side to the east side) is about 3 miles from the trailhead. The second
crossing (east side to west side) is about 4 miles outbound. If you are headed
to Steelhead Lake, you will need to cross the creek an additional time. We did not see a means to cross back over McGee Creek to get to the Steelhead Lake Trail. Pay
attention to the signs. Both crossings are somewhat sketchy since the water is
high and fast. The first crossing had to be extended with a log because the
bank had been worn away. Before you get to the first ‘official’ log crossing
there is a use trail through the trees to the river with a log across it. Some
folks, that past us used this spot to ford the river. If we hadn’t had help
from some young men on our final inbound crossing, that is where we would have
crossed. Thank you!
The trail is partially covered in snow and there are places
it is better to go around the snow since flowing water has created snow bridges
that collapse under the weight of hikers. It happened to us twice.
When you first see Big McGee Lake from the trail above,
there are a couple of use trails that descend to it. We took one for
photographs but these trails have no flat campsites. Stay on the upper trail
until it begins to turn north. At that point, you are by where the peninsula
juts out into the lake. There are several campsites about 200’ above the lake
with steams for water.
The temperature in the morning was surprisingly mild at
about 60 degrees at our campsite. When we hiked out in the morning, the snow on
the trail had refrozen making is slippery. We hiked around the snow whenever we
could. We are not young and our pace was slow. We took fewer photos on our
return leg, which took about 6.5 hours descending back to the trailhead.
It was a beautiful hike and I have included lots of photos. I would not recommend it as a day hike unless
you get an early start and can average about 3 miles an hour.
Most of the photographs were taken with a Sony A7R2 and the
new Sony 16-35mm f2.8 GM lens. Others were taken with the A6000 and the
Sony/Zeiss 16-70mm lens.
Big McGee Lake
Author
Horsetail Falls Water Crossing Trail
Second Crossing At 4 Miles From Trailhead
Trail
Near Trailhead Outbound
Mt. Crocker
Zeiss Batis 18mm 2.8
From Campsite Area
Sunrise
Red And White Mountain (elevation 12, 816')
Waterfall Center
Crossing Helpers Inbound
Looking East To White Mountains
A YouTube video of this hike made of graphics and video clips is available here:
